Iva Toguri Biography

Born July 4, 1916, in Los Angeles, CA; died September 26, 2006, in
Chicago, IL. Radio announcer. Iva Toguri was considered one of the
infamous voices of "Tokyo Rose" during World War II, and
even
though she never used the moniker on her radio broadcasts, she was
convicted as a war criminal and served six years in prison. She received a
presidential pardon in 1977 after extensive media coverage of her story.
"They wound up prosecuting the myth instead of the person,"
investigative reporter Bill Kurtis, who wrote and produced a 1969
television documentary about Toguri, told the
Los Angeles Times
' Valerie J. Nelson.

Toguri was visiting Japan when that country bombed Pearl Harbor in 1941,
launching the United States into the war. Trapped in Japan, she was forced
by the Japanese government to announce on English-speaking radio programs.
Toguri spent her later years in Chicago and in January of 2006, eight
months before her death, she received a citizenship award from a World War
II veterans committee.

Toguri was born on July 4, 1916—Independence Day in the United
States. Her Japanese immigrant parents raised her in what was then the
mostly white city of Compton, south of Los Angeles. Toguri spoke little
Japanese. She joined the Girl Scouts, attended a Methodist church, enjoyed
big bands "and hated sushi," the
Los Angeles Times
' Nelson wrote. She graduated from the University of California,
Los Angeles, with a degree in zoology in June of 1941. Toguri tabled her
medical ambitions to help care for her dying aunt in Japan. Her six-month
stay was nearly over when the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor on December
7.

Toguri's relatives, under pressure from neighbors, made her leave
their home. Branded an enemy alien, she asked Japanese officials to
imprison her with other U.S. nationals. Instead, with the Japanese
government looking for a woman with an American accent to broadcast
propaganda, she was forced to work for Radio Tokyo's "Zero
Hour" show. Toguri was actually one of a dozen or so female
announcers that U.S. soldiers nicknamed "Tokyo Rose." The
persona was used to demoralize U.S. soldiers through false battle reports
and taunting.

Toguri, however, never used that handle, instead calling herself
"Orphan Ann" (the "Ann" was short for
announcer). "While the Japanese were trying to use the broadcasts
as propaganda, an Australian prisoner of war who wrote the shows Toguri
did said the programs were intended as 'straight-out'
entertainment," Trevor Jensen wrote in the
Chicago Tribune
. Comedy skits and newscast introductions were standard fare for Toguri,
which Adam Bernstein of the
Washington Post
described as "a raven-haired woman with a tender moon
face."

After a former Radio Toyko employee identified Toguri as Tokyo Rose, U.S.
occupying forces held her for about a year after the war ended, then
released her. By then she had married Felipe D'Aquino, a Portuguese
national who also worked in the radio industry. But Toguri was rearrested
because of public outcry led by gossip broadcaster Walter Winchell.
"Back home, a myth of war had gone Hollywood," Nelson wrote
in the
Los Angeles Times
. The 1946 movie,
Tokyo Rose
, presented the main character as a "sultry, malevolent
traitor," Nelson wrote. "Pressure steadily built on the
administration of President [Harry S] Truman to 'make an example of
somebody' in 1948," Nelson added. Following her secret
arrest in Japan, she was tried on eight counts of treason and convicted in
1949. During the trial, witnesses testified that she said over the air:
"Orphans of the Pacific, you really are orphans now. How will you
get home now that all your ships are lost?," according to the
New York Times
' Richard Goldstein. She served six years of her ten-year sentence
in West Virginia and received a $10,000 fine upon her release in 1956.
Years later, Toguri said she felt like a scapegoat amid racial hysteria.
"It was eenie, meenie, minie … and I was moe," she
said in 1976, according to the
Los Angeles Times
' Nelson.

After her release, Toguri settled in Chicago, running the J. Toguri
Mercantile Company with her father and other relatives. There, she was a
very private person. "She had a hard outer shell, and you could
understand why," Thomas Tunney, a Chicago Alderman and owner of a
restaurant which Toguri frequented, told the
Chicago Tribune
's Jensen.

The Kurtis documentary aired on a Chicago CBS-TV affiliate in
1969—Toguri's first public airing of her plight—and a
groundswell of support for her snowballed a few years later. Ronald Yates
of
Chicago Tribune
reported in a special series in 1976 that two key witnesses perjured
themselves under intense pressure. Morley Safer followed with a
60 Minutes
segment early in 1977. President Gerald R. Ford, in one of his final acts
in January of 1977, pardoned Toguri and restored her citizenship.
"I have always maintained my innocence—this pardon is a
measure of vindication," Toguri said, according to the
New York Times
' Goldstein.

Toguri and her husband divorced in 1980. While living in Chicago, Toguri
helped Japanese students and young entrepreneurs with funding. Tunney, who
had real estate dealings with Toguri during the 1980s, respected her as a
"hard-nosed businessperson," he told the
Chicago Tribune
's Jensen. She lived in Chicago's Uptown neighborhood, on
the North Side, and communicated little with neighbors.

In January of 2006, the World War II Veterans Committee presented to
Toguri the Edward J. Herlihy citizenship award, named in honor of the
wartime
newsreels announcer. She accepted her medal during a private ceremony at
Yoshi's Cafe in Chicago. "She was tearful and overcome with
emotion," Veterans Committee president James Roberts said in the
Chicago Tribune
. "As I understood it, it was part of a long process of
vindication."

Toguri died on September 26, 2006, of complications from old age in
Chicago, Illinois. She was 90. Toguri had requested no memorial or
funeral.